Vegan Fig Bars + Recipe Videos!!!

Ohhhhh my gosh, it’s already March!? February was full of turmoil as we scrambled to find new housing, which we did thankfully. So sorry that the blog was neglected last month. We’re all settled in our new place now and I’m back in action in the kitchen. And that means I finally get to share these vegan fig bars with you!

Oh, and my big news is that I made my first recipe video (!!!), featuring these delicious figgy treats. I’ve embedded the video in this post and would be honored if you’d take a gander. Bear in mind it’s my first one, so I’m hoping they will get better from here on out. For a shy introvert like myself, this is a big deal, so please excuse my use of “um’s and and’s”, hehehe. I will also make them much shorter, this one got a bit longer than I would have liked. Thanks so much for following my cooking adventures and trying my recipes. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

Vegan Fig Bars

Yield~16bars

Seriously - they are so yummy, just like the store-bought version of my youth. Sweet dried figs with bright sweet citrus, wrapped in a oat-spelt cookie crust. There's only 2 tbs of maple syrup added to this recipe, because dried figs are so naturally sweet on their own. Not to mention they are a powerhouse of vitamins and minerals. I've been packing these in iley's school lunches and he loves them. And papa and I can't keep from sneaking them for ourselves...so good with a cup of tea.

Ingredients

1 cup of spelt flour or whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup rolled oat flour (rolled oats ground into a flour-see notes)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

pinch of sea salt

2 tablespoons aquafaba (chickpea brine/cooking water-see notes)

2 tablespoons unsweetened non-dairy milk

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons melted raw virgin coconut oil

zest of 1 orange

1 tablespoon orange juice

1/4 teaspoon ground vanilla bean or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

6-8 oz. dried figs (stems removed)

1/4-1/3 cup orange juice

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375˚F with rack in center. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

Stir together flours, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl. Then add dry mixture to wet mixture and stir together with a rubber spatula until incorporated. Dough will come together into a ball and be soft to the touch. Set aside.

Trim stems from figs and process them with 1/4 cup of orange juice in a food processor until they form a thick sticky paste. Add more juice if needed to get the right consistency. Set aside.

Divide dough in half and starting with one half, roll out dough into a long rectangle about 1/4" thick. Roll dough out directly onto the baking parchment with another piece of parchment or wax paper on top to keep the dough from sticking to your rolling pin.

Divide filling in half and spread it onto the dough in one long strip down the center. Use parchment to help you roll the dough around the filling so that it forms a log, seam side down. Tuck ends under and pinch to seal in filling. Carefully move log to one side of the parchment so you have room to roll out the other half of dough.

Repeat with the remaining half of dough and filling to form a second log. Carefully slide parchment with logs back onto baking sheet.

Bake for 20 minutes until crust turns slightly golden.

Cool for 10 minutes before cutting into bars with a serrated knife. Enjoy!

Notes

Store fig bars in an airtight container at room temp for up to week.

Aquafaba is the brine of canned chickpeas or the reduced cooking water of cooked dried chickpeas. Save the brine next time you open a can or the cooking water if you cook your own.

To make rolled oat flour simply grind rolled oats into a fine meal/flour in a blender. You may also use oat flour if you have it, but rolled oats are available everywhere and it is easy to make.

Melt coconut oil by setting in a dish, then setting the dish in hot water.

Use any dried figs you want or can source. I used a mixture of dried turkish figs and black mission figs here.

Experiment and add some blueberries or raspberries to the filling for other flavors.